


Brass Tacks

by whiskeyandspite



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Angst, Fluff, High School AU, M/M, Multi, Multi Chapter, Slow Burn, established relationship (you'll see), flashbacks to canon storyline, reincarnation fic (sort of)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-08-24
Updated: 2015-01-07
Packaged: 2018-02-14 12:30:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2191926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whiskeyandspite/pseuds/whiskeyandspite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>A strange sensation of being exactly where he should be, and somewhere utterly foreign.</i>
</p><p>  <i>Certainly he isn’t on a plane. Certainly he isn’t in Paris.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Exodus

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cherishedsaulie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cherishedsaulie/gifts).



> __**Brass tacks**  
>  Informal.  
> 1.  
> the most fundamental considerations; essentials; realities (usually used in the phrase get down to brass tacks).
> 
> Written for the summer run of [Hannibal-ACCA](http://hannibal-acca.tumblr.com/), for a person who gives the most incredible prompts ever. More characters, pairings and tags added as they happen, so there is an element of surprise somewhere ;) the 'optional' additions to the prompt have been taken into account and will be used, but only my lovely prompter remembers what they are so you will get to discover them slowly as they happen.
> 
> The prompt itself is at the bottom, but read the chapter first before you go check it out <3
> 
> I hope you like it, bb!!

_“...It's just that sometimes I get so lost in the places the words take me to, I forget where I am.”_

_\- Exodus, Julie Bertagna_

-=-

“Mischa’s already up.”

Three words and Hannibal’s already lost himself, blinking blearily at the figure in his doorway. He can hear the smile in her voice and there’s a deep ache in his chest he can’t place.

Then the figure leaves and he’s left wondering why he’s being woken, when for more than thirty years he had woken himself.

He stretches, a hand up to rub his eyes of sleep before he finally opens them and surveys his surroundings.

A clean room, white, large, with a slanted ceiling on both sides, though one is steeper than the other. Within that is a skylight with the blinds drawn. A careful glance to his left shows a large desk - also white - strewn with papers and a half-open laptop, the light still on where the screensaver must be playing. On the wall behind it is a pinboard, filled, flyers and photos and business cards of unknown origin.

Nearby stands a sound system, lid open where a record had been playing the night before, the clicking still audible where the needle had settled at the end of it.

Brown eyes return to the ceiling and Hannibal closes them.

A strange sensation of being exactly where he should be, and somewhere utterly foreign.

Certainly he isn’t on a plane. Certainly he isn’t in Paris.

Another sigh, another slow blink and survey of the bedroom and Hannibal pushes himself to sit, arms hooked over his knees, brows furrowed.

A dream, surely. Brought about by the stress of the flight from Baltimore, the pain of leaving behind everything Hannibal had, the one thing that mattered. He brings a hand to his face again, concentrates on the feeling of his fingertips against his skin, rough as he remembers them, the right shape, the right size. He is himself, at least, in this, not a proxy, not an avatar that his mind had conjured to keep him pacified.

And yet -

The stranger at the door had not been a stranger. The voice familiar and warm, the same lilt on certain letters, the same gentleness on the softer consonants; a voice that has not left Hannibal’s mind for his entire life. 

She spoke English to him, but his mother’s voice conjures the same feeling of safety that it always had. And then of course, Mischa.

Hannibal pushes out of bed, nearly trips on the pants that are too long for him, sitting too loose on his hips and turns mid-stride to catch a look at himself in the tall floor-length mirror that rests between the table and his sound system, and then he stops breathing.

Young, certainly, a face he remembers but never this well cared for, never this well fed. His seventeen-year-old self was gaunter, thinner, paler, _sicker_ in heart and soul and body all, yet the young man that stares wide-eyed at him is broad-shouldered and well-fed. Smooth stomach and strong arms, hair perhaps a little too long but there, not falling out or lank from his lack of desire to eat or sleep.

The bags under his eyes are gentle, they’re not bruises.

“Unpleasant trick,” he says, and he knows that voice, already broken though he had been reluctant to use it, not quite the voice that welcomed guests to his dinner parties, not the one that soothed Will in his fitful nights, or held conversations with him in his office.

Thinking of Will brings as hard a pang to his chest as the thought that his mother had greeted him this morning. He swallows and turns from the mirror, groaning softly when he sees the clothes available to him in this dream, the lack of silk and suits.

By the time he’s selected what best he can from the meagre offerings, his mother is calling him again, voice sterner though no less welcome. Hannibal doesn’t check the contents of his bag before he swings it over his shoulder, closes the door behind himself. He notices only belatedly, once already on the school bus - thankfully a place he could think in relative peace instead of attempting to navigate this neighbourhood to a school he isn’t aware of - that his cellphone must still be at home.

-

“The good thing about starting senior year is that I no longer require you to write me a paper on what you did over the summer.”

A general murmur of laughter from the class as Miss Lounds - to Hannibal’s bemusement - sends them all a smile.

“However, the flipside is that I will require a lot more work from you this year. AP English is twice the work the regular classes will have. We will study works they don’t cover, poetry and world literature, plays written by more modern playwrights than Shakespeare.” another wave of amusement from the class, “You are with me 6 hours every week. But you’ve had me long enough now to know it’s closer to 8.”

The rest Hannibal ignores, it doesn’t matter. The dream is realistic in all its details but he won’t be long to wake. Soon the fact that Freddie Lounds is his teacher, the fact that the only thing he’s wearing that he’s comfortable in is a vest over a crisp dark shirt, the fact that his mother woke him this morning, will all be gone, faded with the passing of a 13-hour flight.

“Mr. Lecter.”

“Doctor.”

The correction comes unbidden, reflexive, and Hannibal has to blink to realize that the laughter is directed at him this time, and the smile Freddie - Miss Lounds - sends him is one of patient amusement.

“Perhaps after graduation.” she tells him, “Until then you are Hannibal to me and the rest of us.”

Hannibal blinks, decides not to argue. Miss Lounds watches him long enough to direct her eyes away and back to him, expectant.

“Your copy of Camus,” she prompts, and Hannibal is at a loss. He has read him, years ago, in the original French. But he had not been listening here, had not allowed himself to care. He doesn’t know which book is being discussed, which he should have with him and why he doesn’t. He’s spared the potential embarrassment of admitting so when said book thuds onto his desk from one nearby.

“It’s first day after summer, Miss,” and this voice Hannibal knows, it tenses his shoulders, curves them, has his hands pressing together and his wrists aching. “Be _nice_ to us, we'll be good tomorrow.”

“An attitude that hasn’t changed over summer, Mr. Brown.”

Matthew grins. “One that’s kept me with above average grades till now.”

“Till now.” Freddie smiles, gives Hannibal a gentle look before turning to the board, hand up already to begin the lesson with the title in her impeccable hand and black ink.

Hannibal doesn’t turn to the boy beside him, simply works on keeping his breathing even. It hardly seems to matter, though, apparently he’s used to such inattention and it isn’t something that discourages him from continuing a conversation.

“You will save me in psych for this.” he murmurs, and Hannibal finally forces himself to turn to him.

“Will I?”

“As you always do.” comes the confirmation, that insufferable crooked smile, “Gideon will ride my _ass_ if I fail that paper again, you know that.”

Hannibal’s lips part in surprise he can’t quite contain. Matthew shrugs, crossing his arms over the corner of his desk and resting his chin on top, seemingly unperturbed by Hannibal’s response. As though this is normal between them, as though they talk regularly, as though they’re _friends._

Now that notion brings this dream fairly close to a nightmare and Hannibal groans. Matthew snorts and raises an eyebrow.

“Missed your favourite teacher that much huh.”

“I’ve had a less than coherent morning.” Hannibal responds, taking up the book in front of him for want of something to do with his hands, a distraction of any sort. There are words on the pages when he turns them, though he’s never read L'Étranger before. A fairly impressive trick of his mind if Hannibal concentrated hard enough to care. But he’s growing dizzy with the way his mind has twisted this reality, with the people it has chosen to include, and which it has blatantly ignored.

Three people he had so nearly gotten killed, now all here to haunt him.

“I’ve had a less than coherent summer.” comes the response, teasing, “I still remembered my book.”

“Where’s Will?” Hannibal asks suddenly, and finds his heart beating oddly quick when the other merely furrows his brow.

“Will?”

“Will Graham.”

“Dont know him. New kid?”

Hannibal swallows, turns back to the book in his hands.

He doesn’t answer, and Matthew doesn’t care to ask again.

-

By the time he gets home, Hannibal needs two aspirin. Italian with Bella Crawford had been, thankfully, less stressful than maths with Bedelia. The entire lesson Hannibal had spent trying to catch her eye, trying to understand if she was trapped in this as he was, or if she was merely his projection here, as everyone else was.

Psychology with Dr. Abel Gideon had been as much of a nightmare as Matthew had predicted it would be. By that point, disturbingly, Hannibal had not minded his company.

Perhaps two aspirin and a shot of something. Instead, he finds his mother in the kitchen with a bowl of fruit and a sandwich for him.

She looks just as he remembers her, though there are lines in the corners of her eyes where she has laughed to earn them, the same dimpling the corners of her lips. She looks happy, and Hannibal finds he can’t quite swallow the lump in his throat at seeing her. For this, he thanks his mind, knows he held the image deep enough to recreate.

She tells him about her day, a calm and quiet thing, apparently, involving little more than a short trip to work before a grocery run and picking up his sister from school.

Hannibal has yet to see Mischa. He hopes he gets to before he wakes from this.

For now, he watches his mother, every movement she makes, every gentle brush of her hands against the cookbook laid out in front of her, every bend and tilt and motion, to memorize her as his mind has allowed him to bring her to life.

Without a word he wraps his arms around her, rests his cheek between her shoulders.

“Hannibal.”

A beating heart, a warm body, and then she turns in his hold and embraces him in turn and Hannibal could cry for it, it’s so welcome. But he’s tall here, not the small boy who had clung to her skirts and nuzzled her stomach. Now she rests her head against his shoulder, not he to hers.

“I need to finish the pilaf, sweetheart, you know how long it takes to cook.”

Hannibal can already smell the cardamom, the saffron and groundnut oil. He has made the dish so many times in his life it has never occurred to him that his mother had been the one to introduce it to him as a child. Perhaps he did remember. Perhaps he simply chose not to allow his mind to think back that far.

He’ll wake soon.

“Hannibal! Pick up your damn Skype calls!”

“Mischa, language!” Hannibal allows his mother to return to cooking, turns his head, instead, back towards the stairs from which comes the huff of displeasure and the correction.

“Pick up your darn Skype then!”

This voice, Hannibal doesn’t know, she had been too young when Hannibal lost her, too little to have developed her voice to what it sounds like now. And still he feels the tug in his chest to go to her, to see her properly, to hold her as well before his mind pulls him to consciousness. And it will, he’s certain of it. His mother lets him go with a soft touch to his hair, and Hannibal keeps his chin down as his eyes raise to the top of the stairs when he can see them.

Long-limbed, short-haired, Mischa Lecter looks much like she had as a child, only she has grown into her round face and wavy hair. She looks at Hannibal as he has seen siblings look at each other when they’re this age, in his office, in a life far removed from this - as though she can’t figure out why it is that her brother won’t stop staring.

“In your room,” she says, as though its obvious, “tell your friends to learn to send a da- darn text message.”

With that she’s away, quick on socked feet to her own room which she closes the door to with a snap, and Hannibal is left winded.

He makes his way up the stairs slowly, finally able to take in the rest of the upstairs landing where he had missed it in his morning rush. Notices the bookshelves that line the walls between the bedroom and bathroom doors, much as they had lined the upper walls of his office, notices the antiques and paintings so familiar and welcome.

He spares a glance to those shelves he assumes to be his own, in a small alcove just in front of his bedroom, and finds them filled with not only his usual choices but books he would never have in his possession. Things a young adult would read, now, things that Hannibal had never read, even at this age. He frowns, considers briefly that he would rearrange the shelves were this his life and not his dream, and enters his room again.

The laptop rests as he remembers leaving it in the morning, and the distinctive swish and bubble dial tone plays through the speakers, announcing a call. He hesitates, considers what other nightmarish appearances might be on the other end of the line, which people he had maimed and mutilated who would slip unbidden into this dream that feels almost perfect, if not for the lack of one more person he is aching to see.

In the end he answers simply to stop the dialing, standing to the side and waiting before making himself seen.

“You are twenty-eight minutes late, Hannibal,”

Hannibal releases a breath, settles in his seat and regards the image on the screen. Slightly delayed motions due to distance, he assumes, vaguely blurred at the edges with the quality of the camera, but before him waves a boy about his age, hair a tangled mess of curls, eyes intensely blue with the way the light falls against his face.

The same check shirts, the same thick-framed glasses.

Hannibal feels himself smile, feels that gentle not to a grin but to something loving, familiar.

“Will,” he sighs, and the boy he watches grins back.


	2. Zenith

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“I think I slept, some dreams linger more than others, I can’t seem to wash those away.”_
> 
> _“Did you try to wash them away?” Will asks, and Hannibal has to look at him again, wonder how he knows, before he realizes that perhaps in this world, this universe, he had told Will of such a superstition._
> 
> _“I fear if I do, I will lose them, and I’m not yet ready to.”_
> 
> Will Graham enters Hannibal's world again. Lots of book talk. Lots of feels of the good variety.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One of the things that were optional in the prompt from the amazing [cherishedsaulie](http://cherishedsaulie.tumblr.com/), was that the two of them had an ongoing bookclub through the computer... amusingly it had to be young adult novels that Hannibal most likely will never touch. I amused myself by choosing those that I personally have read, that he may not find quite so scandalous ;)

_“Don't build a bridge into thin air.”  
― Zenith, Julie Bertagna _

“Good thing it’s a Tuesday for me, huh.”

Hannibal blinks, lets himself take Will on the other side of the camera. Younger, but entirely himself; he is just as warm with his smile, just as careful to avoid eye contact, still runs his hand through his hair when he’s both tired and nervous.

“Tuesday?”

“So the clock tells me,” Will deadpans, resting his cheek against his fist, eyes narrowing as Hannibal just continues to watch him. Then Will’s lips part, tongue between, and he sighs, “did you have another of your days where you zone out entirely?”

Hannibal blinks, Will just nods, that seeming answer enough.

“So I suppose you didn’t read our book this week?”

Hannibal wonders, in that moment, what Will knows, how much he could, simply by watching him, by seeing as he was - is, always is - so good at doing with him. Always a slight smile and the backs of his fingers against Hannibal’s face when he was lost in thought, always knowing when to leave a cup of coffee and make his way upstairs or take the coffee to the kitchen and return to rest his weight against Hannibal’s tense form on the couch.

“No,” Hannibal says, word tilting at the end to almost be a question that Will answers without prompting, without being told. He lifts a book and holds it to the webcam, the light glaring off it before it focuses. “Exodus.” Hannibal is fairly sure this has nothing to do with the Bible.

“You know, you chose this one, you’re the one that suggested that since most young adult novels are not to your standard of taste you would like one that touches on pertinent issues that you can discuss and hone in on instead.”

Will’s face comes into focus again and he smiles.

Something tugs at Hannibal that he can’t place, it’s not the nostalgia of closeness, not a memory… or at least not one from there, not from the place where he sleeps on a plane on his way to Paris. It is like a sensation of a breeze when there isn’t one, the knowledge of what it feels like even when it’s not there. It’s strange, makes Hannibal feel out of control and confused, and so, so tired.

But what’s stranger is he remembers. He remembers those words, he remembers selecting the book from his sister’s shelf - surprisingly, with her permission - he remembers.

Entirely impossible, but he finds himself smiling.

“I read the first few chapters,” he says, “and then -”

“You didn’t even get to the good part then, it’s unlike you to stop so soon,” Will tilts his head, lips pressed into a wry smile, “you’re usually so persistent.”

“Where are you?” Hannibal asks instead, finds Will blinking and shifting until he can sit a little higher up in his chair, he reaches to adjust the camera to the new angle, the sound of it moving over the monitor a little too loud in the speakers.

“Current coordinates unknown,” Will explains, almost sombre, “I have been lost within this urban jungle for my entire life barring the one trip I took that I’m sure you remember well enough.” Will’s eyes wrinkle, his smile breaks free again and he shakes his head.

“Did you sleep at all, Hannibal?” he asks, and there is that concern again, that soft, pitched question Hannibal knows well, through sighs and words and gestures, or just his presence alone. This is the Will he _knows_ , this is the Will that can never change, age or time or dream aside.

Hannibal moves his eyes to the top of the Skype window, the time displayed there several hours out from his own, the day entirely different. The place -

“It’s midnight where you are,” Hannibal comments absently, checks his own watch before turning his eyes to the camera again, finding Will there entirely amused, legs crossed on his chair, now, hands down to hold his ankles.

“After daylight savings two weeks ago, yes, six hours difference.” He tells Hannibal, entirely too patient, entirely too calm, and Hannibal wonders how often this must happen, in this reality, how often he must appear so absent and confused and entirely apart from everything around him. He shakes his head, feels an anguish entirely too deep in his chest as he looks at Will, in France, and he himself, here, in Baltimore.

“I slept,” Hannibal answers finally, shaking his head and rubbing his eyes, the bridge of his nose, “I think I slept, some dreams linger more than others, I can’t seem to wash those away.”

“Did you try to wash them away?” Will asks, and Hannibal has to look at him again, wonder how he knows, before he realizes that perhaps in this world, this universe, he had told Will of such a superstition.

“I fear if I do, I will lose them, and I’m not yet ready to.”

“Water’s the medium that transcends -” Will sighs, “everything,” he rocks a little on his chair before catching himself against his desk so he doesn’t spin away from the camera, “it washes away the physical and mental and spiritual of everything, allows you to be clean with it, and cleansed with it.”

“Many religions seem to think so,” Hannibal agrees, settling back in his own seat and crossing his arms over his stomach, “ablution, in many cultures, baptism, mikvah, amrit sanskar. The idea of ideal purification when immersed entirely in water.”

Will laughs, shakes his head. “That program sounds brutal,”

“Which?”

“Baccalaureate.” Will confirms. Hannibal frowns.

“We’re not anointed there,”

“No but you learn about it,” Will laughs again, “look at you, half of those words aren’t in English, and you pronounce them like you speak Hebrew and Hindi. Don’t tell me you learned another four languages since you last spoke to me.”

Hannibal just smiles, eyes wrinkling at the corners in pleasure. He had spoken of things like this with Will before, at dinner, wrapped together in sheets after intimacy and comfort, just talking, about anything either or both of them knew, asking the other if they did not.

“Just those two.” He responds and finds Will turning away from the camera for a moment, murmuring something in quick French he can’t quite catch through the microphone as Will has turned away, but it shoulds rougher, at least, than any French Hannibal knows. When Will turns back he just shakes his head, leans to adjust the camera more to show a large dog - Winston - at Will’s side, before the creature turns to pounce onto the bed and curl up on it as Will watches fondly.

“Anyway,” Will takes up the book again, flicking through the pages as he seeks something, setting his finger to one and closing the book around it, “it’s funny you bring water up.”

“Because the world is flooded in Exodus?” Hannibal asks, playing the straight man as Will narrows his eyes and holds the book up almost menacingly.

“Because of what that means.”

“Beyond the pertinent concern of our world flooding as global warming melts more and more of the polar ice caps?”

“You know, for someone smart you are entirely too pedantic.” Will points out, but he’s smiling, and Hannibal can’t help but smile back. These words he knows well, but it is another kind of knowing, another level of knowing. These words he has caught against his own lips, heard muttered at people who refuse to listen to Will, refuse to believe just how smart he is because he hides it so well.

“Perhaps I am not far enough into it, yet, to know.” Hannibal comments, raises an eyebrow, finds that Will is all too willing to fill in the blanks for him as he settles back, turns to make a soft sound to his dog, to see his tail wag and beat against the pillow he’s curled up on.

“Water transmits movement, depth, changes,” Will says, “the smaller it is the more interesting it is, brooks run quickly, lakes hold clear depths of things we cannot fathom -”

“The oceans?”

“The oceans are monotonous,” Will claims, gesturing with the book, “oceans are a collective of everything at once, too much information, too much space, too much everything.”

“But the brooks and rivers all flow to the sea,” Hannibal says, shifting in his seat as he hears something from downstairs but doesn’t bother to go to the door again, “are you implying all that collective interest becomes overwhelming?”

“That’s what Bertagna’s implying,” Will says, almost exasperated, but he’s grinning, happy to be able to talk about this with his friend. Hannibal wonders if he’s happy, in France, if he knows people there, if they are kind, if they understand what Will is, what magic he holds within him and how important it is for everyone, not just themselves, together.

He wonders, briefly, if Will - this Will, now Will - knows of Hannibal’s feelings for him, he wonders if that has ever come up between them. He doesn’t even know how he met him, and the thought saddens him, pulls the corners of his lips down in a frown before he shakes his head and rubs his eyes, listening to Will go on.

“Microcosm not macrocosm,” Will explains, “concentrating on one small thing, the island of Wing, within the ocean. Then the tower in the sea, still isolated, still the one thing. It makes this entire book introspective, it makes it impossible not to _look_ and _think_ about ourselves and what we’re doing, to the world, to nature… what both are doing back, to us.”

“And what of Fox?” Hannibal asks, grinning when Will blinks at him, wide-eyed, “The weave?”

“How far did you read?” 

“Just the first few chapters,” Hannibal reminds him, and Will shakes his head, laughs.

“Then when you get to em we’ll talk about them, the Weave is an ocean in and of itself, the Ghosts inside it just as the city in the ocean, forgotten and quiet things, but always important things.”

“Hannibal!”

The older boy looks past his laptop for a moment, frowns, turns back to Will to apologize before Mischa barges into his room with an exasperated look.

“Dinner, now, you know how mom gets when you’re like this, it’s rude.”

“Can’t have that, can we?” Will sniggers through the screen, and Mischa tilts her head before coming around to stand at Hannibal’s side, her brother watching her as though he has never seen her before, and look at Will. Will salutes, a brief gesture with his book and tilts his head.

“The elusive sibling,” he comments, Mischa blinks, cheeks darkening a little before she feigns an air of indifference.

“The unexpectedly good looking friend,” she replies, and Hannibal has to laugh at how awkward Will looks for just a moment, being told he is good looking, being recognized for it. Perhaps here, still, he is just as he is in Hannibal’s memory, shy and hard to convince of his own wonder. Mischa turns from the screen and lifts her eyebrow at her brother.

“Dinner, Hannibal, come on.”

“Alright.”

Without another word, she’s gone, back out of his room and down the stairs calling that she told him, that she knows he won’t come down for a while, that perhaps they should eat him instead when he gets there, to rid the world of his rudeness. Hannibal can’t take his eyes from the door for a very long time, and when he does, he sees Will engrossed in the book again, thumb between his teeth, absently chewing against the nail.

“You guys are so alike it’s uncanny,” Will comments, eyes up above his glasses as he grins, sets the book away and stretches his arms over his head with a groan. Hannibal lets himself indulge in the sliver of skin that Will’s stretching reveals, before directing his eyes up again.

“Are we?”

“She talks just like you,” Will tells him, crossing his arms on the table and resting his chin on top before one arm snakes out to adjust the camera again, point it down to him where he rests, tired and young, so, so young.

“Will you read the book?” Will asks, waits for Hannibal to nod, “Good, because we’re a week behind already on our list. You’ve got the list right? You better have the damn list.”

“I have the list.” Hannibal is fairly sure, just as he is certain that Will would tell him of their next book regardless, list or no list. He thinks how it is quaint, entirely them to find something to share across borders and countries. Same books on different shelves, same stars in different skies. He watches Will yawn, stifle it with a fist and blink up at the camera again.

“Why were you late?” he asks, and Hannibal has to think back to realize that apparently he had been. By twenty-eight minutes.

“Bus was late,” he lies easily, “and I found myself engrossed in a discussion when I got home.”

“About what?”

“How to properly make pilaf,” Hannibal smiles, feels his entire body pull him every which way with how overwhelming everything is. His mother alive, his father most likely also, Mischa, and now Will, here, before him when he had thought of him all day.

“Do you guys use cardamom?” Will asks, and Hannibal inclines his head, wondering if, in this world, this place, Will adores the meal as much as Hannibal himself does, he wonders - if he does - who had introduced him to it. Perhaps in this world, this place, Will’s mother never left, perhaps she had taught her son as Hannibal’s had taught him.

How many things, here, are different? What is a place like this for everyone, a heaven or a hell? He wonders if everyone had come here somehow on their own, converged in one deep sleep to meet, again, just to see.

Just to know.

“You know I’m not on tomorrow,” Will interrupts his thoughts with a groan and another stretch, it’s growing later for him, and perhaps this Will can sleep, “helping dad at the shop after school and I will be slaughtered after. Gives you time to read the book.”

Will’s grin is contagious, and Hannibal nods again, feigning at remembering, feigning at knowing all of these details that are so commonplace here, so normal, entirely what they should be.

“I’ll finish it,” he promises, to Will’s infinite pleasure.

“I’ll write, though,” Will continues, “the usual, endless barrage of useless information on fish you don’t know or care about.”

“Hardly,” Hannibal comments, reaches for his phone to check if there are any missed messages on it, or calls, finds that he has several and it warms him, though not all are from Will, “I won’t forget it, tomorrow.”

“I’m surprised you didn’t lose your mind, being entirely untethered from technology for a day.”

“I’m hardly an addict,”

Will raises an eyebrow, and Hannibal wonders if he is one of those adolescent horrors who plays games on his phone, who constantly messages and ignores the world around him.

“You read every single paper that’s been put up online. Why, is beyond me, but I remember the last time you missed an issue.”

“What happened?”

“Anarchy.” Will yawns again and shakes his head. “I need sleep.”

Hannibal just nods, aware that he is needed downstairs, that he has to go to dinner, that he has to pretend everything is fine as he dines with ghosts he has only seen behind his closed eyes for thirty years. Will tosses his glasses to the table and rubs his eyes, and Hannibal thinks of how on nights like that, he would set his hands to Will’s shoulders and rub there, pulling tension from him, and sounds that grew louder and more inappropriate, until Hannibal kissed him or shifted where his hands were touching, to accommodate.

He misses him.

In the most real sense of the word, Hannibal misses Will. Because he isn’t here, because he isn’t the man Hannibal had seen through hell and back, because he had let that man go, he had cut them apart and tasted the blood against his skin as the rain nearly drowned him outside of his own home.

Before him, Will is mumbling something, maybe in French maybe English, it’s hard to tell, but when he drops his hands he’s smiling.

“You always say it first,” Will murmurs again, shakes his head when Hannibal blinks, asks him what, “doesn’t matter. Okay well. I have six hours… five, I have five hours, to get some sort of sleep before school calls me and then work calls after.”

“Will,”

“Keep your phone on you, I’ll send some interesting things.”

“I will, I -”

“Adieu,”

“Will -”

“I’ll see you soon.” Will’s smile lingers on the screen until the camera disconnects and Hannibal watches the Skype window return to the basic admin screen. Half an hour, no more than that and he feels as though he’s breathing again, in all of this. He watches the screen a moment more before closing it with a quiet click.

He doesn’t realize he’s smiling until he’s made his way downstairs, his mother chastising him for being late to dinner, that it will get cold. He doesn’t realize it lingers until his sister kicks him under the table, catches his eye. And then he smiles wider, to her childish confusion.

If he only gets the one day, here, he thinks, at least it has been one worth the effort of dreaming about.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The book discussed is [Exodus](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exodus_%28Bertagna_novel%29) by Julie Bertagna and it's one of my favourites. I actually had no idea the third one was out already and I need to read it immediately, the second book made me cry so hard I couldn't breathe, it was amazing.
> 
> Notes on water in religion found online, notes on water that Will uses to discuss Exodus, found in an interview with Andrei Tarkovsky, references of which can be found [here](http://nofilmschool.com/2014/05/andrei-tarkovskys-use-water-fire-in-films-is-there-symbolism).
> 
> The washing away your bad dreams superstition is one I grew up with, I figured it would be appropriate :)
> 
> Honestly I have no clue if that is how the book should have been interpreted, I have a lot of feelings.

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: _Post season finale, Hannibal doesn't wake up on a plane heading towards Europe. Instead he wakes up in a small bedroom and to his surprise, the smiling face of his mother. She greets him when he leaves the room, teasing him in english that he woke up after his sister._
> 
> _He learns that it's his first day at his new school and that his sister already left to go to hers. To sate his curiosity, he leaves for the high school. The halls are filled with familiar faces. From the living figure of Beverly Katz to the more unexpected individuals, serial killers caught or killed during his time with the FBI. He even sees a toddler Abigail in a photography on the desk of his home economics teacher._
> 
> _Hannibal notes the glaring absence of Will Graham. The day ends and he goes back to the place where he woke up feeling unusually drained. He enters the house and hears Mischa yell from the second floor that his cell has been ringing. When he looks to see who called him, he sees Will's name._
> 
> -=-
> 
> Now, I changed a few details and added others, I hope that's ok! Much more to come for this, but it will be slow going, so please be patient with me. As always, comments and kudos and critique always welcome and appreciated. And taking suggestions also for pairings you would like to see and events you would like to read about ;)
> 
> In the meantime:
> 
> \- I based his room on my own  
> \- Hannibal attends a high school that runs the IB program, simply because I had to suffer through it so he does as well, poor baby  
> \- I did base this in part on the Supernatural episode What Is And What Should Never Be, so there are parallels, but it will be following a different vein  
> \- Yes, in the world Hannibal remembers (canon, I suppose) he and Will were together, hence established relationship and hence flashbacks to some soft and intimate things


End file.
